Wall of Text cleanup

Beautiful job! Could I put what you wrote on the Dork Age page instead of the current wall of text example?

Sure, here's the source code:

The second and current one began in 2014, after [[UsefulNotes/NorthKorea North Korean]] hackers obtained and distributed tons of damaging and highly controversial information about several then-upcoming movies. This prompted a management shake-up which resulted in the controversial Tom Rothman becoming head of the company. What followed was multiple years of box-office duds and critically-mauled disasters such as ''{{Film/Pixels}}'', ''Film/HolmesAndWatson'', and ''WesternAnimation/TheEmojiMovie''. Sony also lost the rights to Film/JamesBond and was briefly entangled in a dispute with Creator/MarvelStudios over the rights to Franchise/SpiderMan. While the company has had a few successes during this period, such as ''Film/SpiderManHomecoming'', ''WesternAnimation/SausageParty'', and ''WesternAnimation/TheAngryBirdsMovie'', these have not been enough to resuscitate the company's fortunes.

Replaced the T-Pain wall of text with this:

• Of all the acts that fell off at the turn of the '10s, few fell harder than T-Pain. Despite getting panned by critics for largely abandoning rapping in favor of Auto-Tune-assisted singing, his debut album produced two Top 10 hits and became a staple of clubs and parties around the world. He continued to build on that success with his 2007 album Epiphany, which produced his first #1 hit and became his first chart-topping album. However, backlash against T-Pain's overexposure, use of Auto-Tune, and less-than-positive lyrics built up over time, and after 2008 each successive album release produced fewer sales and hit singles. As he was the Genre Popularizer of his particular brand of auto-tuned music, he had a hard time escaping from the niche he carved for himself once it fell from popularity. While T-Pain is still recording and performing today, it seems unlikely he will ever recapture the glory of his early career.

Found this on Doctor Who S15 E5 "Underworld":

• Special Effects Failure: Brought on by this particular serial having No Budget. At first, it looks like the story is going to avert this: the miniature effects look completely gorgeous and the spaceship set, costumes and laser effects look rather good for the time. The cave set looks good too, or rather it would if it wasn't a miniature pasted behind the actors in some of the most jarringly awful CSO the show has ever created, forced upon the production by the budget. Since there's no in-story reason for the caves to be an effect, it looks especially weird. Doctor Who has used CSO into miniature sets to create a psychedelic, surreal or dreamlike aesthetic at times, like in "Planet of the Spiders" and "The Invisible Enemy", with brightly-coloured and trippy sets that would be impossible to do in reality - but in "Underworld" they decided to make the shot look 'realistic' by making it all brown, meaning it's ugly as well as difficult to even see where the characters are. K-9 goes through the wall once or twice and is once connected to something with connectors that are obviously just ordinary box clips, not even spray painted. There's also a matte painting shot of a regeneration room - the painting itself looks incredibly realistic and would have worked really well if the shot hadn't been made a little too low down so the bottom of the painting is visible at a right angle on the set floor, ruining the illusion. (To add insult to injury, this is the serial that was airing at the time Star Wars came out.)

Thank you! Replaced the example, and linked to this thread in the edit reason

Tried to trim Puddle of Mudd's entry:

• Puddle of Mudd was one of the biggest rock bands in the world after releasing their debut studio album Come Clean, which yielded two massive hits and sold five million copies. Then the follow-up Life on Display killed their popularity as fast as Come Clean made it. Their third album Famous was better received, but Volume 4: Songs in the Key of Love & Hate tanked massively and finished off their popularity. In later years, Scantlin became notorious for his alcoholism and dubious behavior on and off-stage, including repeated arrests. While he has since sobered up and settled his legal problems, it didn't keep Welcome to Galvania, their first studio album of new material in a decade, from flopping so badly that it was overshadowed by a viral video of an "About a Girl" cover that became the subject of several memes due to Scantlin's strained, off-key vocal performance.

Much better. I think it's OK to post

I think IdiotPlot.Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix could do with a look at.

I started a cleanup of the on-page examples at Slow Laser to remove misuse after it was renamed from Frickin' Laser Beams, and there are quite a few Walls of Text among them. There's also substantial amounts of natter, though my cleanup effort removed many of the problematic entries.

Edited by LaundryPizza03 on Sep 20th 2020 at 10:37:17 AM

This The King Of Hate entry on Horrible.Lets Play needs some serious trimming down.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Sep 24th 2020 at 4:09:50 PM

One thing you could do is remove the mention of his former subpage (and that note is a Justifying Edit).

I think the first step would to be to divide his flaws into sub-bullets. That might make it a bit easier to digest. I'd also probably get rid of some potholes to NRLEP tropes, since there's plenty abound like Jerkass and Lack of Empathy.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Sep 24th 2020 at 5:30:45 AM

Is it just me, or is the example for Dork Age on Netflix overly long?

It's long, but not as long as some other Dork Age examples I've seen. Earlier in the thread I and another troper had to rewrite a 1,444-word long essay about Sony Pictures' downfall.

Though if it is too long we are here to help.

AwesomeButImpractical.Real Life has a serious Wall of Text problem. Sample entry:

• Montreal's Olympic Stadium. Designed to be the world's first retractable roof stadium and the showpiece of the 1976 Summer Olympics, the stadium wasn't fully completed in time for the Games, due to a construction workers' strike. The inclined tower designed to support the roof wasn't completed until over a decade after the Olympics. When the roof was finally installed, it was intended to work like a giant umbrella, with the roof going up into the tower; however, this presented some design flaws. Despite being made of Kevlar (the same material bulletproof vests are made from), the roof was prone to tearing in high winds, couldn't be operated when wind speed was above 25 mph (40 km/h), and would often leak water. After ten years, the "retractable" roof was replaced with a fixed roof; however, problems persisted as the stadium is rendered unusable during the winter after the new roof collapsed in its first winter of use after heavy snowfall. After construction delays, mounting interest payments, and failed attempts to fix its design flaws, the Olympic Stadium cost the city of Montreal and the Quebec provincial government over C$1.5 billion^note about US$1.32 billion in 2006, a debt that wasn't fully paid off until three decades after the 1976 Summer Olympics. And it still suffers from structural problems and acoustics so bad that you can't hear anything on the loudspeakers unless you are sitting directly beneath one. Perhaps the crowning touch is the stadium's integration with the Pie-IX Metro station. Being able to walk from Metro to the lower level of the stadium is surely appreciated on rainy days. Less appreciated is the Metro line's position directly beneath the stadium. This renders the stadium simultaneously too inadequate to use and too expensive to demolish because it can't be imploded without destroying the Metro tunnels in the process.

Found this on Growing with the Audience:

• Emman himself (of all people), confirms his intentions for Max's Extremely Goofy College Life and Max and Roxanne: A Goofy Romantic Video Game (aka the real Grand Finale to Goof Troop, where Max finally gets his own happy ending) to be made for the Target audience for both Goofy Movies who are now Teenagers and Young Adults in High School and College years while at the same time, having a Multiple Demographic Appeal. Regarding to the latter, as Teenagers and Young Adults who watched Goof Troop and both Goofy Movies who are now more familiar with many kinds of media aimed at them. From 1980s-90s Movies, Shows, Comics and stuff such as Scarface (1983), Top Gun, TheTerminator, Dirty Harry, TRON, Fist of the North Star, Knight Rider, Back To The Future, Miami Vice, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, The Dukes of Hazzard, Kinnikuman in addition to Ultimate Muscle (albeit with a Terryman Expy with bits of the Hero from Airwolf while at the same time, including some of the Rated M for Manly traits), Airwolf, Cagney & Lacey and so many more to count and as well as Michael Jackson and Queen (in which he cited them as his influences for the game), to Video Games that they are more familiar with as they grow up such as Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto franchise (and his Goof Troop game even followed the footsteps to an another family-friendly GTA Clone, LEGO City Undercover where it would be a Lighter and Softer Alternate Company Equivalent while at the same time, a Genre Throwback to the material perfect for a typical GTA-like game) and in fact, this also contrasts with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (an another show that has Goofy appearing), to the point that as opposed to this show being more Lighter and Softer than previous Mickey Mouse incarnations, his proposal new chapters for Max's adventures would grow with the fans of the Goof Troop Universe as a whole who are now in High School and College while they had plans to get married. Likewise with the Kingdom Hearts franchise and the 2020 Avengers Game, it would be distributed and published by Square-Enix. He also did a similar approach if we got a Sofia the First-based Dark Souls, The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy and Assassin's Creed-esque Action RPG Video Game (with Stealth and Hack-'n-Slash stuff added too). The Game would be published and distributed by Square-Enix, much like he said with his Goof Troop game (if it ever gonna get made). The game would also have a slight Genre Shift, from a Medieval Fantasy to a Science Fantasy Video Game with Urban Fantasy elements. As Young Girls and Boys who watched and grew up with the show in which they later (the demographic of Sofia the First and as for the former, main demographic of the Disney Princess franchise in general) grow more older into Teenagers and Young Adults in which they are familiar with a variety of franchises in many genres (including Sailor Moon, Naruto, many Marvel and DC Comic Book Superheroes, the works of Bruce Lee, Star Wars, Final Fantasy and others), he intends the Game to be his Science Fantasy meets Urban Fantasy with a dash of a High Fantasy based Souls borne we never got. As for the latter, it would contrast the Fleeting Demographic trope that almost every franchise aimed at young boys and girls had, due to the said things above. For the former two's case, he even wants to do everything he can impress the fans. From making his own heartwarming approach to the Adored by the Network trope in which he confirms that the entirety of Goof Troop itself as well as three Max-centric episodes of House of Mouse would be aired on TV and it's aforementioned films would get re-releases for Cinemas in addition to his own Heartwarming Approach to the Re Released For Free trope to promote the game (including its two films), to cross-promotions of franchises that the fans who grew up watching Goof Troop and its films became more familiar with such as Disney and Square-Enix's own franchises (as for the latter's case, the Final Fantasy titles (in particular, the game would have Max cosplaying as Squall "Leon" Leonhart (complete with a Cover Version of Faye Wong's Eyes on Me performed by Asami Imai as Chihaya Kisaragi in it's entirety in English) and by extension, a few others into the mix like Tomb Raider to the point that Lara Croft is one of the more fitting Urban-based Heroes and Heroines to cross-promote with), Bandai-Namco's The iDOLM@STER (considering the fact that the fangirls of Goof Troop as a whole became familiar with J-pop stuff), Shuiesha's My Hero Academia, Ubisoft's Splinter Cell (But that doesn't mean the Game can't include a special Rayman Easter Egg and the Splinter Cell thing would be complete with Max cosplaying as Sam Fisher) and more, to the point that he wanted the marketing and such that has Max in them would be more Urban fitting compared to many other animated works that are aimed at Everyone.

OK, that can definitely be cut down. Seems like a lot of unnecessary info there than can be cut. As I know nothing about this work, it is difficult for me to cut down, but perhaps later today I'll try.

I'll save you the trouble — I cut the entire entry as the work doesn't actually exist outside of an "Ideas" wiki.

Ah thanks. Something seemed off about that entry, glad to hear its gone.

Found this on The Batman Adventures:

• Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: Deconstruction. According to The New Batman Adventures episode "Cold Comfort", after Nora Fries was cured of her terminal illness, she waited for her missing and presumed dead husband Victor Fries for some time before she gave up waiting, marrying her doctor Francis D'Anjou and leaving Gotham for good. This was expanded in Batman: Gotham Adventures #5, Batman: Gotham Adventures #51, and Batman Adventures #15. In Batman: Gotham Adventures #5 Mr. Freeze teams up with Robin, Nightwing and Batgirl to rescue Francis because he cares about her happiness; after Francis is save and Freeze escapes, Francis reveals that Nora still loves him. Batman: Gotham Adventures #51 shows that Mr. Freeze has been sending letters to Nora asking to see her one more time, but that Francis has been hiding all the letters. The issue ends with Mr. Freeze leaving for the Arctic, accepting that Nora does not want anything to do with him, as Nora arrives at Arkham Asylum asking for him. In Batman Adventures #15, Francis, jealous of Nora's feelings for Victor, frames him for attacking him by having a robot freeze him, hoping to convince her to see Victor as a monster. Nora refuses to believe that Victor was behind the attack and leaves for the Arctic to find him. Victor confirms that he was not responsible, and that he would never hurt Francis because she loves him. Nora wants to believe him and admits she does not love Francis, and is not sure she ever did, as she embraces him. Batman and Batgirl arrive to apprehend Victor, who chooses to fight back, thinking Batman will arrest him for his other crimes even if he isn't responsible for Francis' attack. During their fight, Batman causes Victor's suit to overload, which leaves his head to fall into the Arctic Ocean, devastating Nora. After learning the truth, Nora leaves Francis in prison. After Nora talks with Victor's former assistant Koonak, Nora returns to the Arctic, hoping to find Victor's head. It's implied that she never found him and spends her whole life looking for him. So because she understandably tried to move on with her life, Nora separated from Victor again, and what makes it worse is Victor did not come to see her because his condition has completely destroyed his body and he believes he can never be with her, when in fact Nora does not care and still loves him.

I cleaned up the first folder of AwesomeButImpractical.Real Life. How does it look?

From ThatOneLevel.Super Mario Bros (warning: unmarked spoilers):

• Champion's Road. The final platforming level of the game, it serves at the ultimate test of your skills in the game and more. The first part of the level starts off rather simple, with the player avoiding Octoombas while jumping across pits and fighting Fire Brothers on solid land. However, next up is fighting a group of Charging Chucks over alternating, one-character-wide platforms; a mistimed jump or a Charging Chuck hit into a gap between platforms means death by bottomless pit. Following that is a section of auto-switching blocks like the ones seen in worlds 4-3 and Flower-8, but that switch at a rate even faster than Flower-8, requiring either long jumps or using a Tanuki suit to float over the platforms in order to get across. Your reward for getting past the switching blocks is a fight against three Magikoopas on a platform made of blocks that fall away when the player characters walks on them (though luckily the platforms respawn after a bit to allow the Magikoopas to be killed). Next, the player must traverse through a set of swinging spiked poles set all over another bottomless pit, with those swinging poles guarding moving platforms that allow the player to advance further, and Fuzzies strewn throughout the path just to make your life harder. Following that is a section where the player must combine wall-jumping and jumping off enemies to get to the top of a tower, followed by a section where the player must swim in a moving block of water while avoiding spiked surfaces, including several moving spiked blocks. The final challenge of the level has the player traverse across platforms made of nothing of boost pads, make several jumps while going at full speed and pick up five key tokens to unlock the box to travel to the final part of the level. The catch? That entire path of boost pads has Ring Burners parked along every side, including four such burners guarding the key tokens. Luckily, once the keyblock in the boost pad area is accessed, the level takes it easy on you, with a victory lap across a lengthy invisible pipe that spells out "THANK YOU!" and a flagpole area where the final collectible (the level's Stamp) is there for easy taking. The Green Stars (the other collectibles) are also placed at easily accessible locations at the end of certain areas, ostensibly as a reward for getting past that particular section of the level. There is also no checkpoint at any point in the stage, meaning if you die, you have to run through this gauntlet all over again.

From YMMV.COPS

• Values Dissonance: The show was always a product of the late '80s War on Drugs era in which it was created by oversampling drug crimes relative to their real life occurrences. Drug crimes accounted for a little over 10% of arrests throughout its early years but the show's arrests were about one-third drug crimes. It also oversampled the arrests of black and Latino men for these low level crimes, even though white people do drugs at the same rates. This wasn't so much of a problem for about the first half of the show's run throughout the Bush Sr., Clinton, and first half of the Bush Jr. administrations as they all were very much focused on the "tough on crime" mentalities. However by the second half of the Bush Jr. administration and throughout the entirety of the Obama administration, both the federal government and the public at large began to realize how disastrous the war on drugs was and opinion shifted from thinking that low level drug criminals were bad guys who needed to be put away for the good of society to thinking that they were sick/down on their luck people who needed empathy and treatment and that they weren't hurting anyone else. Arrests for drug crimes have gone down every year since 2006 but the show actually started having more drug crimes at that point and kept arresting black and Latino men at disproportionate rates as well. It just kept assuming people felt the same way they did about these victimless crimes as they did in 1989 and was part of the reason it was eventually cancelled in 2020 (as well as the push for the media to end glamourizing police brutality in the wake of the death of George Floyd).

How's this for a rewrite?

• Values Dissonance: The show's portrayal of the War on Drugs has not aged well, and may have contributed to its cancellation. During the show's early years, drug-related arrests, predominantly those of minority groups such as African-Americans and Latinx people, made up a large amount of the arrests the show made. This worked at the time due to the fact that the War on Drugs had a large amount of support at the time. However, the general change in public opinion on the War on Drugs (particularly how it affected said minority groups,) and a backlash against police brutality as a whole made these arrests (and the show as a whole) look a lot less comfortable then it once did, which along with the show's doubling down and increasing these portrayals may have been a contributing factor to its 2020 cancellation.

Still too long?

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Nov 4th 2020 at 8:37:30 AM

Looks much better.